Episode 178 with Brian Skinner

The Godfathers of Podcasting are back and welcome a man making his second appearance on the show!  He's a former NBA tough guy who played 14 seasons in the league!  He suited up for the Clippers, Cavaliers, 76ers, Bucks, Kings, Trailblazers, Suns and Grizzlies!  

Currently he coaches young kids to play the game, and he has two daughters that are multi time NCAA champions in volleyball, and his daughter Avery will be representing America at the Summer Olympics in Paris!  

This is a great episode and you should definitely check it out!  Send us your feedback by texting 437 375 2000.

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Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-godfathers-of-podcasting--4303576/support.

Episode Transcript

(00:16):
Welcome to the Godfathers of podcasting nowin Heah Alton know the podcasting since before
podcasting was even called podcasting. Ourgives of this show are available on every
major podcast provider and combined video archives, merge and more on your website.
Godfathers a podcasting dot com. Nowyou're your hosts. Two guys have been

(00:38):
broadcasting online since ninety ninety six,the godfathers of podcasting themselves, Donnie is
Silva and Chris Kidwell. Welcome tothe Godfathers of podcasting. And like the
ladies said minor Ms, Donnie andmy tag team partner, who's with me
every week of you this damn thing. He is the Jordans to my Phippen,
the Magic to my Kareem. Heis the Larry Legend to Mike Kevin

(01:02):
McHale. That is notorious. TI d Chris Tidwell, What up did?
That has to be the worst oneever? Why? Why? Michael
Jordan to your Pippin? Are youNahuna? That's when that ship got personal
is the problem. I can't fillthose shoes. I can't, I can't

(01:26):
never possibly, no way. You'regetting You're getting mad for getting too much
hype. Bro you want to knowwhat kind of knowledge I have in the
game of basketball. You could havesaid I was like the guy in the
mascot suit to your That would havebeen better. He's He's the Raphael arougo

(01:48):
to my Yogi Stewart. How aboutthat? Those aren't even words, but
we're gonna go with it. Igot you. I want to make a
quick shout out the new theme songthat debuted on the show a couple of
weeks ago. So of course itis off the new album Vigilante by our
bro Danny Oh. I made amistake a couple of weeks ago, tied
I mentioned that Dan's single Cleansed MySoul off the new album had gone to

(02:12):
number one on college radio in Canada. I was mistaken it was college radio
in the United States. So congratulationsto our bro Danni O whose new album
is making noise. If you haven'talready got it, go to Dan hyphen
E hyphen O dot com for somelegit old school feeling hip hop. That
record is just a banger from trackto track to track. Also quick shout

(02:38):
out BLACKBORKUSA dot com. You cansee I am wearing yet another Blackbork USA
dot com hat. And I've saidthis before and if you haven't already picked
up on the gimmick here it is. Every single Blackbork USA hat has the
ability to change the patches on thefront. You can do custom patches like

(03:02):
my Godfather's a podcasting one right here, or you can just get whatever you
want on your hat. So theyhave a different variety of hats, different
styles, different colors, and thenumber of patches they have available on their
website are limitless as well. Youcan just make your own. Go to
blackpoorkusa dot com tell them the Godfather'sa podcasting Sentia. And finally, Tid,

(03:30):
are you still rocking your baronial products? I'm almost out. I am
out of soap, I am almostout of the wonderful oily elixir. We
will have to we will have totouch base with our friends at baroneal beard.
And you know what, someone whoI think would benefit from these products,
although his beard is pretty is prettyon point, but maybe he would

(03:52):
enjoy a change in his regiment.Is our guest that joins us tonight,
Tied, what do you say webring them in? Stud Ladies and Gentlemen's
time right now for the big hello, and this Man was a four year
starter at Baylor, and as asenior he averaged eighteen and ten, which
led to him being drafted twenty secondoverall to the Clippers in nineteen ninety eight.

(04:14):
Over the course of his career,he also played for Cleveland, Philly,
Milwaukee, Sacramento, Portland, Phoenix, and Memphis, and he spent
some time playing overseas. In twentythirteen, he was elected to the Baylor
Bears Hall of Fame. He's alsogot two daughters who are NCA eight national
champions in volleyball, and one ofthem will be representing USA at this summer's
Olympic Games in Paris. Ladies andgentlemen, he's got the mindset of a

(04:38):
winner. Don't call him late todinner. His daughter's got that dog withinner
because they learn from this man,Mister Brian Skinner, that's doing. How
are you you to think of thatone? Right there? I low,
I'm good. I'm good, blessed, definitely blessed. I guess so.
Man like First and foremost, let'stalk about the very topical news, and

(05:02):
I just mentioned it in the intro. You made a comment on your social
media this week about your daughter Averygetting a chance to go and represent her
country at the Olympics. What doesthat do for you? Man? Like?
How are you must be on cloudnine right now? You know what,
to be honest with you, isa process of how long it took

(05:25):
her to get through there, youknow, seventeen years of preparing for something.
You know, Hussain Bolt said itbest, he goes, you know
what, I practiced four years foreleven seconds. That's what I did,
four years for eleven seconds. Shedid seventeen years with this opportunity. For
me, it's a proud dad moment, definitely. I'm not an Olympian.

(05:47):
I played against the Dream Team,but I never made it to the Olympics.
So I don't think it's soaked infor her yet. It hasn't hit
her yet. For me, Iunderstand how big it is. You know.
I told her she had you know, national champion, first Team All
American. I said, all that'sgoing to be ended with United States Olympian.

(06:09):
For the rest of your life,you'll have that title. So yeah,
it's definitely humbling to watch the processand to see what these girls,
these young ladies go through rigorously dayin and day out. It's completely different
than AAU. It's completely different.There's loyalty in volleyball. Hey, you

(06:29):
doesn't have any loyalty. No,they're all over the place. But you
know they put this work in.They put a lot of work in to
get where she was. And youknow, I'm for me. I'm speechless.
I just kept saying congratulations, congratulations. And she called me four times.
I was out of pocket for awhile, and I'm looking like,
well, do I have four missphone calls? Of course she got me
on the fifth one, so shewas persistent. She was persistent. But

(06:54):
when she told me, you couldjust see her eyes light up. It's
amazing, man. So are youmaking play to get out to France?
That is the That is the plan. Okay, that is the plan.
I have so much stuff going onright now. I know people say you
got to go, So that isthe plan. We're just trying to work
on the logistics. We got alittle small ones right now, and you

(07:15):
know, you can't just be like, here, have a can of beans
and you know, some soda andyou know, fin for yourself. We'll
be back in a week or so. It's going to take a little bit
of planning, but that's the ultimategoal. Is to be able to watch
her perform and do something that youknow, I guess it's less than one
percent. It's less than one percent. I would like to know what that

(07:35):
percentage is. You know, Iput that on my death my podcast,
put that on your podcast. Butyou know, it's definitely less than one
percent to be able to do that. You're talking about twelve women out of
the country that are able to representtheir country and the sport that's constantly and
consistently growing, you know, dayin and day out. It's crazy.

(07:56):
And I can tell you did Iknow you want to jump in, but
I just want to throw this inwhen you talk about the small percentage of
people to get this opportunity. Afriend of this show, she's been on
this show a couple of times.She's a Canadian national boxing champion. She's
been a boxing champion for the lastcouple of years and was rated as one
of the top two or three inthe world at her weight class, and

(08:20):
she was on track to go toParis and as of last weekend, the
Olympic dream is over for her becauseshe lost in a qualifying fight and it
is absolutely heartbreaking. She's been trainingfor this for years. Now she's like,
well, I'm not sure if I'mgoing to hang up the gloves or
get ready for the next Olympics rightnow. You know, you're looking at

(08:43):
four years yeah, preparation and rightbefore it happens. It has to be
perfect. Nobody cares what you didthe first three years. Now about three
and a half years, you know, and you got to get to that
right when you're qualifying and has tobe flawless. It has to be on
point. And people don't understand themental tenacity that it takes and the resiliency

(09:03):
to get up and prepare for something. You know, let me, let
me take off two years and thenI'll work out the next two years.
It's not like that they're consistently workingout every single day for this one opportunity.
Yeah, I feel like it's gotto be a lot more than just
the four years though, especially foryourself, because this has been a process

(09:24):
ever since your girls were a littlechildren, you know what I mean.
It had to be those waking up, going to camps, those losing weekends
for yourself to be able to bethere for them, and now seeing this
thing come to full maturity, it'sgot to be I mean I can't imagine
the joy that it brings you asa father. But the question is what

(09:52):
is going to happen after that?Where does it go from there? You
know what I mean? Like,do you guys do the tour together?
Well, I mean that's let's thinkabout this. If you open up a
photo album and you're looking at photoalbum, what do you normally take pictures
of happy moments? Right? Butit's those sad moments that you don't record
that gets you to that next happymoment. You know it exists, but

(10:15):
it's not documented right now, youpeople don't people look at all the flashing
lights and they look at your nameup on banners and posters and on the
TV and on media and social mediaand you know, news based media.
It is the days in the gymwhere nobody's clapping for you, nobody's patting

(10:41):
you on the back, nobody's tellingyou good job. Those are the times
that it's ugly, you get frustrated, you get pissed off, that gets
you to that recorded moment like thisfor her to be named to the USA
Volleyball roster. Yeah, behind thescenes, people don't really understand what it
is. And you know, nowwe talk about it. You have a

(11:03):
lot. Everybody has a mixtape,everybody has, you know, a highlight
tape. Everybody wants a highlight tape. And when I grew up, you
had to be the best of thebest, and if somebody made you one,
and then you know you had madeit. But now it's so diluted
right now, and I get it, but it's not a feel good situation.
Which you know, when you startlooking at professional sports, you are
looking at that one percent right now, you're looking at the fifty three hundred

(11:26):
you know, NBA players. Ican talk about that because I know about
that, but fifty three hundred NBAplayers that have played the last seventy five
years. When you start looking atit, you know it is an elite
base. And you're looking at longevityof three to four years average of playing,
you know, and most people areout and you see guys that are
playing twenty years now. You seeguys that are playing eighteen years, fifteen

(11:50):
years. As we evolve, thesports evolving, but people are involving sizes.
They're getting faster, they're getting quicker, they're getting taller. You know,
you have a seven to four,you know, one through five player
right now, who people thought wasgoing to struggle his first year and he's
come out and played and did thingsthat people didn't even think that he could
accomplish. But it's just a itis. It's a lot of miss Christmases,

(12:15):
a lot of misthanksgivings, it's alot of miss birthdays. It's a
lot of traveling. You know,no prom. You know, someone said
that, like I didn't go toany prom. I know, Ames said
it from ut when they did aninterview with her. She's like, I
didn't go to prom, I didn'tgo to homecoming. I missed Christmases,
I was on the road, Iwas traveling. And those are the things.

(12:35):
It's going to sacrifice. It.It's gonna cost you something, family
time. It cost me a lot. It cost me my family. You
know, I miss birthdays, ChristmasIs, Halloween's, graduations. I didn't
go for that time. Now I'mtrying to make up for it, which
I'll never make up for it.But nevertheless, you know, people don't
really understand the dedication. I don'tfeel well well. If it's Game seven
right now of the finals, rightnow, would you play, Yeah,

(12:58):
I'd play. Then there's your rightnow. You don't want to go to
practice, go to practice, andthat's the store. Or more importantly,
and this is my question because you'llknow this firsthand, does volleyball have an
alan iverson? You know what Imean? Do they have that character practice?

(13:18):
You know what I'll be and I'mnot going to say it. You're
not going to give me to sayit, me to say it, I
won't do it. But I havesome players, and you do, like
anything you do, like college AU, You're for the people who don't cheat
and play up or reclass five times. You know, when you have that

(13:39):
true talent. You don't want someonethat's seventeen playing thirteen year olds. That
just doesn't work. But there aresome girls that are the upper epsilon.
I mean, it's in the NBA, it's in the w NBA. I
mean, it's in Pickoball if youreally want to go there. You know,
it's everywhere. There are some girlsright now that are just a whole

(14:00):
other level. But I'll say this, it's a team effort. You can't
win with just one person. It'snot gonna happen right now. You have
to have a good collective amount ofpeople are behind you that understand exactly what
their jobs and responsibilities are. Leaveyour egos, you know, humble yourself,
your egos at the door right now, and the bottom line of it's,
you know, more we instead ofkind of me. Now there's no

(14:22):
I in team, but there isn'twhen you know there's going to be an
opportunity for that. But there aresome girls that stand out that are dominating
the volleyball world right now. Andpeople that are in volleyball know exactly who
I'm talking about, but they're outthere. It's not diluted. I don't

(14:45):
think it's deluted. I think youhave a lot of people that get a
lot of different teams that put alot of mediocre players on. There are
good players and decent players. Butwhen you start looking at world championships,
you start looking at know, Franceand China and Italy, and you look
at the USA, and then youlook at you know, all these Turkey.

(15:05):
You look at all these teams rightnow, pauland you have some girls
that are upper epchelon of that interms of what they can do and how
skilled and how developed they are.They can jump out of this world or
their IQ on the floor is justcompletely amazing and unbelievable to watch. I

(15:26):
mean, it's in every sport.It's even in the business world, you
know. So it's there. Butyou won't give me the same names.
I won't. I'm won't do it. Just to rewind, just to rewind
a couple of minutes, you madea comment which I thought was funny,
but I wanted to relay this toyou before I ask you my question.
You said, nobody takes pictures ofthe sad moments. Right A few weeks

(15:48):
ago, we had a guest onthe show who's a now retired professional basketball
player. He played overseas. Nowhe's a university head coach, then works
for the team he played for whenhe was a kid in school, and
I was one of his coaches.His dad, who was his biggest fan,
was also the guy that kept himhumble, and he was the guy

(16:11):
that if we lost a tournament andhe saw his son with a tear in
his eye, he took a picture. I'll forget how this felt. That's
exactly how it is right now.You you you see too many of these
young athletes right now. This isthe separation. You know, I said
this before. You know, goodplayers want to be coached great players want

(16:33):
the truth. But if you everand I'll say this, and I'm I'm
gonna stand by it, if youever see a player after a loss right
now, laughing and joking and kiddingand you don't see them abruptly upset and
kicked off, I will say thatI'm gonna I'm I'm gonna say they're not
winners. They'll never be winners.They will never ever be winning. That

(16:56):
That's that's hard to say because understandwith what I do. I have some
kids that are they want to playbecause they love playing the sport, and
you'll have the parents on the backside, Well, you know that Junior
is never going to play in theNBA. You know he's not going to
get a Division one scholarship, buthe loves playing and he works hard and
this is his first passion. Soyou have those players, and I love

(17:18):
that about that now for those players, but you have so many players.
If I walked into the room andsaid how many of you guys want to
be NBA players or go to college, and they all on to raise their
hand up, every single one ofthem, and I just look at him
and I'm like, we lost thatlast game. You weren't even upset.
It didn't even bother you. Infact, you called your friend and was
like, hey, are we comingover. We're going on to the pool.
We're gonna go swim today. We'regonna have a good time. Like

(17:41):
I would be in the gym tryingto correct why even if it wasn't my
fault right now, I'd be inthe gym trying to do that. So
you have a lot of different peopleout there. But for that's why he
made it. That's why he didwhat he did, and that's why he
was successful in doing his sport.Right now, if his dad caught that
tears, what that means that itbothered him. You're not going to change

(18:03):
until it bothers you. Right,don't fix it if it's not broken.
There's a lot of people out therethat are broken that don't think they're broken.
They don't try to fix it,so they just keep doing the same
thing over and over again, expectinga different result, and they get content
and complacent and it just doesn't work. I know, I'm using a lot
of big words. I'm sorry,I gotta go back down, but it's
just that's okay. It's that Bayloreducation. Let me ask you this because

(18:29):
I've had this situation as a basketballcoach, and I'm sure you have to,
right where you lose a big gameor a championship final or something,
and then you have someone come upto you, whether it's a parent on
the team, whether it's a player, whether it's another coach, and they're
like, hey, what's the matter? Hey, you realize, am I

(18:51):
the only one that gives a shit? Am I the only one that's feeling
this loss? Like that absolutely makesit. It took my parents a little
time to figure out, like,I don't really want to talk about it.
I've done that with my daughters.I know we don't have a lot
of time, but I've done thatwith them. And you know, I
told my fourteen year old that placeat Skyline, the same club that my

(19:14):
two oldest went to. I toldher. I'm like, I've pissed off
my kids multiple times. I mean, if I told you half the stories
that I've told Abe, I'm like, look, there's dead I love you.
I'm proud of you. Give aneffort, you know what. I'm
proud of you, whether you succeededor not, I said, But then
there's also the other side. Ofdead right now. That is a competitor.

(19:36):
Right now, I'm like, you'renot doing everything you need to do
right now, you know, froma physical standpoint, from a psychological emotional
standpoint, like I've been honest.I remember, Maddie. Of course it
was the year they it was this. I think it was this year of
last year. It gets confusing afteryou win so many national titles. I
think it was a second that wasa humble brag if I ever heard right,

(20:00):
well, she has three. Shehas three. I mean, look,
I don't even have one. Ididn't get close to them. I
didn't get close to sixty four.I didn't get it to the ground.
So I mean she has three.So I got expectations. Now I get
no one title, Like you failed, like you set the standard. I
didn't say it. So I toldher one time she had about eight errors.

(20:22):
We were at home and she hadeight errors and I looked at it.
I'm like, thank god, yougot the ball over this time.
And she gave me the stink restingbee face and she looked at me and
she was so mad. She waslike, Dad, I don't want to
talk to you. She walked off, and so I called her and I
was like, hey, like,what's wrong. She's like, you hurt

(20:44):
my feelings by saying what you said. Right now, I said, sweetheart,
And I said, I'm going totell you when you do something really
good. I'm gonna tell you whenyou do something really bad. I said,
I want you to know. I'mjust gonna be honest about it.
Don't listen to what I'm saying.Take something from it, get better from
it. So you know I've tickedthem off. There is one story when
they won their first national title togetherat Kentucky right now, believe it or

(21:06):
not, you know, I don'tthink I've told anyone this. You guys
are be the first ones. Theywere frustrated. They were super frustrated,
and they were talking about going tothe transfer coort. Both of them.
They were like, I'm done.And it was just a process. It
wasn't the physical, It wasn't anykind of physicality in terms of injuries or
anything else. It was emotional andpsychological draining and the obstacles that were in

(21:30):
front of them that you know,we had to talk through and we had
to work through. And it's convincingand manipulating the situation to get them to
a point where they stayed, andthat was the year they won a national
title, and then Avery left andwent to Baylor. Maddy stayed one more
year and then she went to UTShe won the national title that next year,
and then won another national title thispast previous year and it's gone from

(21:53):
there. But those were the baddays that got them to this point right
now, and there's so many moreof it. But you know, people
ask how much how much do Ineed to do? Well? I can't
tell you that. One person likeAlan Irison, who never ever ever did
anything else outside of it, hewas just rawly talented. You had guys

(22:15):
that were coming in trying to liftand get hundreds of thousands of extra shots,
and this man could come in offthe street right now, put some
shoes on and play a full,entire game. I've never seen anyone that
talented and that precise and optimizing themaximum amountability that he have right now.

(22:36):
He was one of those guys.I was, you know, eight hour,
nine hour workout days, five daysa week, six days a week,
and you know, he could justhang out all summer and come back
in and play a full game.And it didn't look like he missed a
beat. That's crazy. It's justphenomenal just to watch. But some of
these athletes are like this. Youknow, I don't necessarily believe that if

(22:56):
you put a ton of work ininto it, you're going to get better
than someone else because you put morework into it. That just doesn't exist.
You know, hard work will alwayspersevere when talent doesn't show up.
And you have a lot of peoplethat are talented out there, and themb
line of it is, now,if you put a person that's talented with
hard work, you know you gotthe one person that outworked everybody. Kobe

(23:18):
Bryant, mister bean. You know, when you look at it, he
literally, physically, emotionally, psychologicallyoutworked everyone to get to where he was
right now, right, I don'tknow if players still have that same work
ethic. There's a few out there, but it was a norm back then.
There's a lot more coddled athletes nowright, And you already you already

(23:41):
made, you already made reference systemit courage. My foot hurts, I
got stop, I need a break. I'm like go home, like this
is not for everybody, It's not. And you know those those are the
people that are going to separate themselvesafter a while, you get to a
certain level. Everybody's good, everybody'sgreat. When you get to that level,
you know, if you look atthe possible potential players, you know,

(24:03):
even for the USA Olympics. AndI asked last in general, like
what are they looking for? BecauseI didn't understand some of the stuff that
they did. I didn't, butthey saw a bigger picture and they're more
in tune to that. But whatare you looking for? You know,
you have a ton of athletes thatare phenomenal and they know exactly what they
do. They have humility, theyknow how to play the game. But

(24:25):
for some reason, there's a certainthing that they're looking for and that goes
to each individual coach of this iswhat I want, this is what I'm
going to go with, and thisis what I have to trust my gut
instinct with. So you know,that's how it is. But nowadays,
Yeah, kids are coddled. Kidsexpect they rather put in the least amount
of time and hope for the biggestamount of opportunities and success out of it.

(24:48):
And the ones that are going toput their head down and just grind
it out are going to be theones that are going to be successful.
So I'm just going to throw mygirls in there. You know, that's
what they did. I saw.I saw it from when they had knee
pants that were longing in their legsright now to where they are right now.
It's definitely a dead moment. ButI'll say for anybody that's listening to

(25:11):
this that's young and motivated, yougot to work your butt off. You
got to be obsessed with it.You can't casually date it. If you
date it, guess what, you'renot going to marry it. You got
to marry it. You got tobe completely obsessed with it. Whether it's
going to the gym or going tothe movies. I'm going to the gym.
That was me. You know,I'm going out with my friends.
I'm going to get shots up.I'm going to get shots up. You
know, I want to hang out. You know, Dad, when you

(25:33):
go out and shoot with me,My dad's like, I'm tired. Well
I'm tired too. I'm gonna hangout in the house now. I was
outside. So when you find thoseplayers right now, and even if you
do put it, this is thecrazy thing. You put all that time
and effort into it. You mightnot get the results that you want.
Yeah, you might not get theresults, but at least you know you
did everything physically possible that you couldhave done. So when you step away,

(25:56):
you know that you left everything onthe floor into a sense of accomplishment
to a certain extent. Then yougo on through something else with your life,
and you'd be successful at doing that, but you've learned something from it.
You talk about, you talked aboutearlier how there's and you're kind of
making a joke, but it wasreal about how there's loyalty within the volleyball
programs unlike AAU. And I cantell you yeah, and I could tell

(26:21):
you like having coached AAU myself.I've been in this situation where you have
the kid that's been deemed as astar player. He's top ten, top
fifty in the country, and hethinks nobody can touch him. And you
see him dogging it on our endof the court, so you pull him
and next thing you know, theparents are coming up to you saying,

(26:44):
I think we're gonna switch teams.You're gonna switch teams. Still, I
pulled your kid for not playing dit it? Yeah, it happens.
The thing about it is is,you know, even with even with everything
right now, and you still arelooking at the math and you start looking
at Division one, Division two,Division three colleges, you look at how

(27:06):
many teams they have, over closeto eleven hundred total. When you get
to Division three, you're still lookingat paying part of your scholarship. So
division one, Division two you're stillclose to around eight hundred. And then
you look at how many players thatare on scholarship right now. And when
you start doing that, you startmultiplying, and then you start looking at

(27:26):
there's what one hundred and fifty Europeanplayers now in the NBA right now.
Yeah, you know that's almost happened. You know, the USA has figured
out we're not dominating like we usedto dominate. Now there's a lot of
skill European players that are coming over. Well, it's not just the volume,
right, It's not just the volumeof non Americans. It's also the

(27:48):
best players in the NBA right noware non Americans. Yeah, I mean
when you start looking at it overand over again, and you know,
and it goes back to you know, Europe you have that six one six,
you have that six one six kindof mentality. You know, we
come here to the States and behonest, we play six games and we
might practice once. I know someteams that don't practice at all. I

(28:11):
know some that practice ones, somepractice two, some practice three. When
you get past three, you prettymuch have a kid that's a single child
and their parents have nothing else todo with their lives but be able to
come to it. It's a lot. But you know when you do that,
when you get to Europe, youknow, they'll practice six days in
a row and play one game.You know, and it's different. You're
working on your fundamentals. You're morefundamentally sound. It's not just you know,

(28:34):
and you don't have a shitload oftrainers giving twelve and a ten year
old boys NBA moves. You know, they're showing them NBA moves right now,
And I'm like, you know,Billy that's in front of you is
not even reacting to that like anormal basketball player would be, because it's

(28:55):
way too advanced. He doesn't evenknow he's supposed to reach for the ball.
He's not even reaching for the ball, in fact, move more than
a foot right now. So youjust did that for no reason whatsoever.
So I mean, you have alot of different things, but that you
know, for me, especially withmy organization, I try to teach the
fundamentals. Some people don't like that. I'm not going to clip wings.
I still want the individuality, butI still want the individuality within a system.

(29:18):
And that's just how it is.Even in the pros. You have
a playbook that's this big. Now, you might only run maybe twenty or
thirty plays, but you got toplaybook this big and you got to know
it regardless. It could be onpage four hundred and thirty eight right now,
and you need to know that play. You know, black Hawk down
on four hundred and thirty eight,And if you don't, you're not really
a professional. So when you startdoing that stuff, you know, don't

(29:41):
I don't believe in just letting mykiss just run around and just shoot and
play and run like it's a drawand kick system. It's a trust system,
it's a buddy system, a dribble, hand off, a pitch,
you know, a draw, doyou pass if you kick? Can you
shoot the right left hand? Floator all these different things. But like
I said, you know it's different, But no, there's there's zero royalty
and a you have some I'm notgoing to say zero. You have some

(30:03):
that are royal in terms of whatthey do and understand they have a good
system, a good coach, orI just don't like this player, I'm
going to go elsewhere. You know, AAU is they're trying to treat like
nil right now. But what yougot to understand too is is nil.
These coaches aren't going to recruit youif they know that you're going to go.
I mean, they've changed it somany times. If I can go

(30:25):
into the transfer portal now, andif I go to the transfer portal now
and I don't go somewhere else,you got to keep my scholarship, and
you still have to respect my scholarship. Well, these college coaches are going
to say, if you're not afour or five star recruit, guess what's
I'm not going to even waste mytime on you. Only you go tot
JUCO and I'm gonna let you figureit out, and then you're gonna be

(30:45):
gracious to get out of there.Let you go to a D three where
you have to pay you know,fifteen thousand of your tuition right now,
and you're going to be so happythat we're going to try to give you
a one year or two year scholarship. You're willing to do anything to get
through it. Well, it's goingto change. You know, four star,
five stars, you know are goingto be the recruits. If you're
A two or a three, it'snot going to be the same where Hey,

(31:07):
you know what, you might getsome interest in a lower D one
or upper D two. It's definitelychanged. Obviously, I don't necessarily agree
with how the NCAA has done everything, but I feel like they're all shows.
Should be a better structure with howthey're going to divvy up this twenty
million dollars that they're going to distributebetween all of these players. Some of

(31:33):
these players are making more than yourcoaches. Yeah, so when that happens
right now, Yeah, how areyou going to navigate that? Well,
it's not the pros, it's thesame thing in the pros. I want
to I want to mention this becauseyou were talking about the skill level of
European players now and one thing Inoticed way back, I think it was

(31:56):
two thousand and two or two thousandand three, I got a chance to
to a tournament that was being heldin Spain, and I saw something that
blew my mind, which made somuch sense to me after I saw it.
But at the time, Skinner,I had never heard of this before.
And it's not every single European country, but a lot of the countries
that are developing skilled players do this. And that is when they're developing and

(32:21):
training young kids. They don't playon a ten foot rim until they're ninth
graders. Until they're that age.Up until that point, they're playing on
six or eight foot rims so thatthey can teach proper fundamentals on their shots.
Because you know, little kids,they'll two hand chuck it, they'll
do whatever. They'll build up badhabits because they're just trying to get it

(32:44):
in the bucket and sometimes they're justnot strong enough. So they believe in
it's a prey on the week rightnow. When you do that, that's
why you see a lot of AAUteams now they trap and they do full
court presses. Yeah, you tellme any NBA game that do full court
presses? Right how many colleges dofull court pressure situations? Full court two

(33:07):
to two one? I mean theydon't. Guys are too skilled right now.
So you have a lot of coachesthat run only his own You're not
fucking your kid, like unless yougo to one or two select colleges and
know Syracuse used to run, youknow, as a half court defense.
But nobody runs a two to threeor one three one or three two or

(33:30):
if they do, if they do, they're so gimmicky now right, it's
like it's like a zone that turnsinto a man on a ball screen.
What are you gonna do with littleBobby that is three foot two right now
and weighs like forty five pounds andyou have a double team trap and the
only guy that's open is fifty feetaway, Like, you can't get the
ball there, can't do It's aturnover every single time. Kids. The

(33:52):
fundamentals right now, you know,teaching your kids how to play man,
it's what they're going that's treating themup success. Think about it. Everything
is a man. It's a twoman game. It's a pin down game.
It's how to come up with pickingrolls, how to come up from
handoffs, pitches, all this.Nobody's running a zone right now. You
don't run a zone. You mightrun NBA a zone where you got a

(34:14):
guy that's in the paint because youhave a guy that's not shooting, but
then not everybody's shooting now, eventhe guys in the first nine years of
their career that have thirty three pointopportunities right now that the next four years
they shot over nine hundred threes.Like it evolves. So no one's just
sitting in the paint right now,Like I dare you to shoot at this

(34:34):
lumbering six foot or seven foot point. You don't have any six' ten
centers now, like you just don'thave it anymore. Everybody should be power
forward, power forward, power forward, small forward, shooting guard or point
guard. You know, there's nocenters really, and they don't play like
that. Nobody really plays with theirback to the basket, underneath the basket

(34:55):
mid range. They will every sooften, but the game's changed, the
games evolved now. But yeah,there's I mean, let's just be honest,
there's no loyalty in age. Toput it like this. My daughter's
in volleyball right now. If youwalk into the gym and you see one
of your teammates playing for another team, I promise you she won't be on

(35:15):
the team that day. And thenfor her to go somewhere else guess what
they'd be like, you can't dothat, You're not supposed to do that
like that. Society has made itmade it abnormal for you to do them.
Like me, what if? Whatif my players came into the gym
and they see me coaching another AAUteam? What what wait a minute?

(35:38):
Or or I'm playing against my teamand I'm coaching another AAU team but I
told them I couldn't coach them,and I had one of my assistant coaches
come and coach them. They wouldlook at me like what the and oh,
you know what, it would hitthe ceiling fan. But you know
what, for a player to dothat, it's okay, it's all right.

(36:01):
It's just different right now. Andeven a lot of the coaches right
now, I'm talking to a lotof my coaches right now, they're recruiting
players on parents. What are yourparents like? Are they fans? You
know they got to be here onthe weekend. Are they're gonna be supporting
us right now? Am I gonnabe getting an email from your family talking
about your kid needs to play moreright now? Or he's not playing enough

(36:22):
to where you go to your kidand say you're not doing everything you need
to do to make sure that you'replaying the amount of time that you want.
Are you doing that? You know, keep your kids in check,
but you have a lot of that. They're looking at parents right now.
They're also looking at, to behonest with you, sadly enough, how
many AA teasings did you play for? They're looking at that too, because

(36:45):
they're feeling like, if you playedfor fifteen AAU teams in the last six
years and you have all these jerseysin your closet, you're gonna do the
same thing to us right now.As soon as you get tired of us,
you're gonna leave and you're gonna goelsewhere. Do we really want to
invest in you? Are you worththe extra trouble to deal with and knowing
that you couldn't leave if you don'tbuy into what we're trying to do right

(37:07):
now. We might give you thirtyminutes of playing time you want forty Now
you're gonna see you to go elsewhere. It sounds like it's become much more
of like a job interview at thatpoint. You know what I mean,
because I'll say it as a personwho runs a business. If I get
somebody who comes in and I lookat their resume and they've been with you
know, they've got eight jobs inthe last two years, and they've only

(37:29):
been at each place for like threemonths here, three months here. I'm
a lot less likely. I'm alot less likely to say no, I
don't even want to call you.And you're gonna mess up my business right
exactly, And you're gonna you're gonnaleave me with and now I gotta deal
with it. I'm slapping myself orhiring your stupid Today you talked about how

(37:52):
there's no centers anymore. There's akid who absolutely dominated the NCAA tournament this
year and he's from Toronto, playedfor Purdue, and that seven foot three
Zach Edy's have a hard time.Yeah. So, like the draft is
coming up and it's been called theworst draft ever. That's what the scouts

(38:16):
are calling it, the worst draft. I can definitely agree with that.
It's all diluted. It's deluted nowand like I said, you get a
lot of mediocre players, but you'rehaving to pick somebody. And you know,
if these teams don't sign a tonof two way deal right now and
put these boys in the G Leagueand sort of get their feet wet a
little bit. Yeah. I meanif you look back at it, what

(38:40):
was it last year the year before, when you start looking at it with
the most valuable player or most outstandingplayer, player of the year, what
what draft class was that? Thatwas? That was last year? The
center from Kentucky. Yeah, whathis name is? And then from Gonzaga.

(39:02):
You're gonna make me go back.I can't go on my phone right
now. See beings have changed.No, I don't have to go on
my computer. I can just goon my smartphone and figure out all this.
And he got I can't think ofwhat his name was. White guy.
He got drafted by the Milwaukee Bucks. He made Milwaukee's camp, but
none of them got drafted. Noneof them got drafted. And then he
went to Milwaukee's G League team,but he average he was he was from

(39:27):
Gonzaga. Come on, guys,I can't even think of his freaking name.
I'm having a brain fart right now. But he remember to Timmy,
Timmy from Gonzaga mustache stash, Yeah, yeah, yeah. He He scored
more points in the n C douableA tournament than anyone else so far.

(39:49):
Tim Drew Drew Timmy, I knewhe kept you around for a reason.
That's what it to go to.But Drew Timmy, You're start looking at
those players. And then you gotthe other kid from Kentucky and he averaged
I think what fourteen points sixteen reboundsa game, and he got a National

(40:12):
Player of the Year, and yougot all these none of them got drafted.
And the reason why they didn't havean outside jump shot they couldn't face
the basket. They were liabilities onguarding the perimeter right now, because you're
you're at seven foot you know,let's let's look at you. Honest,
You're gonna you're gonna guard. You'regonna have to guard. You're gonna switch
up right now, You're gonna havea side pick and roll. You're gonna

(40:32):
have to guard Kyrie eventually or Lucaat one point in time. You can't
give a bucket every single time.They're gonna run the same play sixty seventy
times, and now they're targeting you, and it's gonna get to the league
and all of a sudden, yourcoach's gonna have to sit you down.
So when you start doing this,but they couldn't face up, they couldn't
shoot the ball outside, they weren'tcomfortable guarding the perimeter, and as they

(40:53):
can I say it, Tim Tebowof college basketball, that's what they were.
Yeah, it will be interesting tosee. It'll be interesting to see
because you're right, there have beena lot of guys over the last bunch
of years that were dominant bigs incollege and then they just can't play at

(41:14):
the NBA level because they don't havethe foot speed in order to defend anyone
in space. And suddenly that dominancethat they had at the rim is just
not there anymore. But it makesyou wonder if Shaquille O'Neill was a twenty
year old today, would teams notdraft him? Like I said, you
have those players that are upper epchelonin terms of being dominant. The kicker

(41:37):
is is nobody would be able tostop him offensively. Right. Look,
if you've got a guy that canscore thirty points right now and he's given
up nineteen right now, and youlook at plus and minuses right now,
Okay, if you got a guythat's scoring twenty points and he's given up
twenty five, we can't deal withthat. Guys in an elite that don't

(42:00):
play defense. I'm not gonna saythose names either, but you know a
lot, you know a lot theycome to mind right now. They put
up huge numbers and they are adefensive liability, but they put up the
numbers that they can. So they'replus and minuses. Plus is just offset
right now and you're scoring forty points. You know, there's how many times

(42:21):
are you going to match up yourbest perimeter player against the opponent's best perimeter
player is not going to happen.They're gonna put somebody more mobile and more
agility and more, you know,to guard that person. We need you
to score. There's not too manyplayers that play offense and play and give
it to you on the defensive side. There's not that many out there.

(42:42):
Those are the elite of the eliteright now that are able to do that
right now. So with that beingsaid, yeah, I mean, if
you can't play and face the basketright now, and if you can't guard
the perimeter, you know, Imean if you look at even Rudy right
now, you know they had himdoing three six. He's guarding the perimeter
and this guy is long and link. There's nothing you can do about it.
Literally, the defensive player of theyear. You said defensive player of

(43:08):
the year. But you get himin a in a you know, in
a pick and roll where he hasto step up and he's he's a lone
man on an island. He looksridiculous. So you said that, you
said, I did. You knowwhat, I'll take it a step further.
You talk about guys that score morethan than or that don't score as

(43:30):
much as they allow even though theyscore a ton. There's a couple of
them that are going to be startingin the NBA Finals later tonight. You
know what, I'm a fan ofwhat they can do offensively, but what
they do defensively is disgusting. No, it doesn't. But you know what,
when you start looking at it,you know, you start looking at
that, what seventy is a seventyeight billion dollars TV contract over the next

(43:54):
eleven years. Yeah, when we'llsay that again, seventy eight billion.
Come on, let's be honest.There's some there's certain people that make that
happen that create you're you're gonna havesome things that you know, like I
said, we need you to dothis, We don't need you to do
this so much we need you tobe able to do this, and I

(44:15):
need you to do that. Youknow, it's just like luck is being
prepared at the opportunity given right now, That's what luck is and performing and
you know, you get your chance, you get your shot to be able
to do it. But I'm notgoing to say it. Heck no,
I mean, you have some ofthe most prolific scores in the world that
you watch them play right now,I don't I don't really need you to

(44:38):
get six or seven stills. Imean, what what is the average Chris,
What's what's the average amount of stillsthat NBA player averages right now?
Maybe two two three is your twois your league leader? There you go.
I mean, let's be honest,right now, let's go block shots,
you know, start defensive rebounds.I mean, you know, obviously

(45:00):
forty points, there's no one gettingforty rebounds, there's no one getting forty
stills, there's no one getting fortyassists. Right now. You know,
you have certain people that do theirjobs. Well, that's what you're supposed
to do. You're supposed to doyour job and do it with humility and
do it with grace and know whatyou're capable of doing, playing within yourself,

(45:22):
exploring those boundaries. But you know, you're looking at longevity right now.
Those players that I'm known a tonof players that have gone in,
you know, they got drafted higherthan I did, and they weren't there
longer than three years. You know, they just they didn't do their job
well. You know, if yougot a shooting guard that's shooting thirty eight
percent from the field, come on, you're not going to be there long.

(45:45):
And some people here like thirty eightpercent phenomenal. I'm like, you're
a shooting guard. You shoot overat least over forty. We're talking about
two percent. We're talking about twopercent. We're talking about a draft like
ten or fifteen. We're talking abouttwo percent. But that two percent,
that's the bottom of the epchelon rightnow to where guess what, you're gonna

(46:07):
go to this G league right now, and you're gonna go somewhere to Spain
or Madrid or you know, Italy, and you're gonna go and play there
for a couple of years. Andyou will give you a call. You
know, there's a lot of guysthat got that. We'll give you a
call. Don't call us we'll callyou and then you see the time last
ten years later. Yeah, andthere's a bunch of those guys. There's

(46:28):
a bunch of those guys. Raptorfans are still waiting for Roko Ukic to
come back because that dude got draftedand never showed up. My man,
Tidwell here is a huge, hugefootball fan, and you being a big,
strong cat growing up in Texas,I'm guessing there must have been coaches
that we're trying to get you onthe football field. I give you a

(46:50):
true story. I got in troublein middle school. My parents sent me
to a private school. Got introuble my sixth grade year. I went
to a private school for two years. I don't even know how they managed
to afford to do that, butobviously I felt like I was important that
they did that. Obviously after thefact, they took me for my friends.
But I I left, went toa private school for two years,

(47:15):
came back, and nobody had aclue who I was. They forgot me.
Everybody moved on, they evolved andcreated their own click and cliches and
stuff. So, you know,for me kind of growing up, it
was one of those things where Iwas always a loner, so to speak,

(47:35):
and putting the time and putting thework in, putting the effort in.
But you know, I was justthinking about this. I was in
Torontoto. I forgot how many months. How many months was in Toronto?
I think I was in Toronto.Lenny Wilkins was a coach for like maybe
three three months, and they hadan option, and of course I went
to Cleveland after that. But youknow, there's a lot of life lessons

(47:57):
out there. It just depends onwhat you want to take from me,
if you want them or not,depends on what you want. I don't
know. Sorry, I was justgonna say, have you ever have you
ever had a situation come up thoughwhen you were growing up? Are you
a football fan? Growing up inTexas? I was a Dallas Cowboy fan.

(48:21):
And they got rid of Tom Landry. We've had enough, We've had
enough. He's an eagle. Hecan't I can't take it. I can't
take it, Tom Landry. Theygot rid of Tom Landry. And then
after that, you know, Isort of floated around a little bit.
I've always had a Packers fan.I like the Packers. I was in

(48:43):
Milwaukee for a while that was ateam that sort of grew with me.
I mean, I'd like the SeattleSeahawks for a while. All in all,
I probably say I was a packI'm a Packers fan all in all.
But you know what, to behonest with you, I don't even
have time to go do my mymy fishing or less watch football or basketball.
And I got a three and Igot a freaking five year old right

(49:06):
now, so I don't have timeto even do that more or less go
to the bathroom by myself without someonetrying to make sure I'm okay. So
but for football, you know,I played football one year my June,
my freshman year. My freshman yearin high school, I played football.
I couldnot bench press the bar intwenty five pounds. And this was the

(49:29):
story. When I went to aprivate school, I didn't left. I
didn't have that. I lost allmy friends. You know, we played
chess at this school, Emanue Lutheran. We played chess. We didn't,
you know. I taught myself howto play chess. That was what they
did for a past time. Iwent from a graduating class of like one
hundred and something plus to like six. I was the only black guy in
the freaking class. Okay, Likethat was enough for me. I'm looking

(49:52):
around and everybody's looking at me.I'm like, I like, why are
you here? I'm like, Igo to school here. But I played
my freshman year in high school.I played my freshman year, and I
had no idea what the heck Iwas doing. I played basketball. We
played foot flag football, but Iwas a quarterback. But I was also
six to one. I was ascrawling little thing. I came in.

(50:14):
They're like, you're tall. Yougo over there, you're a center,
and I'm like, I played pointguard. They weren't trying to hear it.
In fact, my high school coachninth grade, lives out here.
James Johnson, he lives out here. He used to scare me. He
was a football coach. He wasa big guy too. He never cursed,
but his favorite word was crap andhe yelled it loud and he just

(50:37):
it just it radiated throughout the wholeentire gym. But I played one year
and he used to give me griefbecause I couldn't lift the bar. But
a twenty five pound played on eachside, I just couldn't do it.
I was not physically strong enough todo it. Like, you know,
I had no pectoral muscles. Iwas small and sprawning. And then I

(50:58):
played baseball and I was good atbaseball, and my baseball coach I didn't
really care for him too much atthat time. And then my high school
coach that just came in was like, hey, you want to try,
AU, you want to play inthe summer. I'm like, man,
I don't know, maybe I mighttry. And I said said, okay,
I'll play. And so I playedwent from there third string like C

(51:19):
team, B team, I don'tknow B or C. They get they
sort of. It wasn't any I'lltell you that, but you know,
third string player, I like fifteenkids. You know, I was a
guy that I still used this terminologywith my kids twenty twenty. Man,
I was the guy they put intwenty points ahead or twenty points behind.
That was what I right, andyou know, and then from there I
just stuck with basketball, and youknow, I got ticked off at everybody

(51:43):
and decided to put the work inand see what happened. And I didn't
really know what I was doing.But you know, obviously my coach at
the time, Harry Miller really believedin what he saw. I didn't see
it, my parents didn't see it. But I just listened to what he
told me to do, and Ijust did it. And it turned out
like this. You know, gota Division one scholarship, got drafted first
round, played and had a successfulcareer. And then you know, I

(52:07):
had two daughters that won national championships, one future Olympian. You know,
it turned out pretty well. Itturned out pretty well. I'm not going
to say that it was all myDNA, and I want to say that.
I can't say that, you know, but you know, I don't

(52:28):
think I would change anything of whatI did, even my past mistakes,
to all my successes. I don'tthink I want to change it. I
think it sort of created the manthat I am right now, and it
created the things that I have rightnow. I have an unbelievable life.
I have two little ones right now, and all my kids are healthy.

(52:49):
They all want to play sports.If that's not me, I told my
fortune. I told my thirteen yearold son, I said, if you
want to be in the ballet,if you want to be in a musical,
I said, any want to welcometo I don't care what you do.
I just want you to give onehundred and ten percent. He just
looked at every like, no,Dad, No, I'm going to play
a sport. So he's playing basketballnow. In fact, right before I

(53:10):
got on here, that's what wewere doing. So we got back.
But you know, I'll say that. You know, God is definitely good.
I've been blessed, But I don'tthink I would change anything. You
know, I got a lot ofmistakes. I trying to make sure my
kids don't repeat any of them.If you need to know what not to
do, I can definitely tell youwhat not to do. Just do the

(53:30):
complete opposite. You'll be fine.Listen, we're up against the clock.
We got to run before we do. I want to ask you this.
One of my pals, who youknow, I chat with him any time
I get a chance, is aformer NBA tough guy, Gary trent Sor

(53:54):
and Gary and I were hanging outtogether in Toronto last ball and hold on
you said it wrong. It's yeah, it's my shirtless all the time brand,
Gary Trice. Yeah, he doesn'tlike wearing shirts. He doesn't like

(54:15):
wearing shirts. That's that's legit.But he mentioned he mentioned you as being
one of the guys he most likedto bang with because he's like, yeah,
man, Skinner was always fun.Who who do you think of when
you look back at your playing days. Who is the guy that you said,

(54:36):
oh, that's what I matched upwith. All right, this is
I'm gonna get bruised up, butthis will be a lot of fun.
But what people don't get it wasevery night. Yeah, no, I
know. It wasn't one person.You had one price. It's it's something
that you guys can relate to.Now, we're not going to do this
here in Texas hockey. You hadthat one bruiser. Your job is to
go and pick the biggest guy overthere and beat the living That your job

(55:00):
right now. For us, itwas every night. I mean there was
that saying no blood, no foul. You know we didn't we didn't call
these weak tic tac files. Rightnow. If a tooth wasn't hanging,
you know, by the nerve outof your mouth right now, and you
didn't tuck it back in, andyour orbal socket wasn't you know, your
eyeball was just trooping and you justcrammed it back in you continued to play.

(55:22):
That's how it was. You know, you started looking at trend I
was talking to Reggie Slater even youknow, you start looking at like Antonium
and Dice, you know, Imean you start looking at all these guys
that were huge and just love tobang. That was their job as a
power forward. Now moved to alittle bit of small forward and center,

(55:44):
but as a power forward, thatwas your job. You were supposed to.
That was the Charles Oakley and AnthonyMason of if you come back in
here, you're gonna leave on astretcher and your career is going to be
short. Yeah. And he's like, you didn't talk to me, like
I let the NCAA in scoring.And sure enough, you know, crash

(56:04):
card came out, neck Brace cameout, and we told you and it
was like that the game has changed. But I also see it now that
the game they're going to move backto being a little bit more defensively oriented.
Right now, you can't have atwo hundred point off their game.
That's bad for business seventy eight billiondollars. But you know they're going to

(56:27):
get a little bit more defensive orientedinstead of just the non tic tech.
I think they figured out that playerscan score the ball if they want to
score the ball, and now it'sa free for all, and you know,
the tie doesn't necessarily go to therunner right now. So I'm hoping
they get a little bit more physicalin terms of what they try to do
and refs understand a little bit morethan changing the trader's rule more offensively.

(56:50):
I think it was what's sixty fortyand now it's like thirty seventy now for
offense, and it's so it's justchanged so much. That's the one thing
that I miss. You know,you see these little flavorant ones right now.
I'm like, that's just a normalfoul, like take the ball out
on the sideline. But you knowthey're they're trying to hobnoutly protect their players.
And you have high dollar players thatare there and you got to protect

(57:14):
them to a certain extent. Butyou know, they're getting paid more.
But we did a lot more bangingwhen it came down to it. But
that was a highlight. You know, if I didn't go home with a
couple of bruises and you know,a contusion and a couple of ice bags,
you know, I don't feel likeI did my job. So you
know, I try to take iteasy on my players when we do a
little one on one or two ontwo and they look at me like I'm

(57:36):
a piece of meat. I'm like, it's still in there. I still
everyone. One of them gets thrownand flung across and they look at me
like that foh, I'm like,dude, I didn't even touch it.
So definitely, Gary, Gary wasdefinitely that guy. He was the epitome
of there were tough players then.He was that tough guy right now that

(58:00):
you definitely had to watch what yousaid to him because there was no hesitation.
You know, A clear backhand acrossthe face was a flavored one.
You know, it's a flavored one. And you get the ball out,
you know, and you worry aboutgetting ejected, and that's your what five
thousand dollars fine at the time,and now it's exponential right now, but
you know, you pay more.You got to pay more, you know,

(58:22):
So that that's just that's just howthe league is right now. But
you know, I'm not mad atit's an evolution. It's definitely growing.
But I definitely see an international typeof league happening in the near future.
Right now, don't quote me onthat, but it has to because the

(58:44):
influence that you have of international playersin this league and how impactful they are
right now, Why wouldn't you thatthat's a generating money stream that they haven't
even trying to touch yet. Soonce that happens right now, you know,
sky's a limit. Interesting are yousaying that there is going to be
one day some other competing league withthe NBA? Wouldn't you think? So?

(59:12):
It's I mean, they've tried,They've tried, They've tried it with
other sports, you know what Imean. What I'm what I'm saying is
not another league right now, butthey're going to start to combine a lot
of these European teams right now.I don't know how they would do it
right now, but you have alot of When you have one hundred and
fifty plus European players that are playingand i'll say one of the best basketball

(59:34):
leagues in the world. When youhave that right now, you've got to
look at where these players are comingfrom, and you've got to look at
the development of these players and whythey're being so successful. I mean,
there was a huge gap when youstart looking at ninety six stream team.
That was a huge gap. Thegames were, you know, one hundred
and forty to like nineteen, youknow, one hundred and forty to forty.
It's not like that anymore, youknow, it's it's very balanced and

(59:58):
you're having to work right now.It's not just going in and dominating right
now. You're having some very competitivegames right now because you're playing against these
guys, you know, for onehundred plus games a season right now.
You know exactly they're getting the samedevelopment, you're getting the same And that's
like going to a school right nowthat has unlimited resources and you have another
school right now that has very limitedresources, and they're competing from scholastics,

(01:00:25):
there's there's no there's there's no competitionwhen you have that, you have you
have one side that just is goingto dominate the resources they have available.
Right now, now you're starting tolook at it. These resources are starting
to balance out a little bit rightnow. So why wouldn't you Why wouldn't
you start? You were paying theleague slash NBA league right now where you
go over for a month and youplay Madrid and you play some of these

(01:00:49):
top epchelon teams right now, andyou go through it and you come back
over and you get that international focus, you get that international publication right now,
and now you talk about just Amazon, NBC and all these different you
know, syndicates. You're talking aboutseventy eight million right now, that's just
here. What about broadcasting and telebroadcastingacross the globe right now? Watching your

(01:01:15):
favorite players, like, you know, why wouldn't you now how to structure
that. I'll lead that to theguys that are way of pay grain.
But well, Adam Silver has said, Adam Silver said for years now that
his dream is. You know,right now, the only team in the
NBA outside of the continental United Statesis Toronto. But he has talked about
wanting a team in Mexico. Hehas talked about wanting teams in Europe.

(01:01:38):
He's talked about wanting teams in Asia. And he said the only reason we
haven't done it yet is because youneed enough teams in each of those regions
to have their own division or theirown conference so they can play against each
other. And then when they travelit's like you said, they're coming over
for like three four weeks on aroad trip. But the thing for like

(01:02:00):
if the New York Knicks are goingover to England. Then they're going to
be there for a month. Youknow. So for TVs, what's that
for TV? I said, youhad a four K TV, but you
had no broadcasting channels, right andthey didn't want to make the broadcasting channels
because they were only limited on fourK TVs. So it's it came first

(01:02:21):
the chicken or the egg. Rightnow, it's just the first, the
first group that actually starts to dothat. It's going to grow. It's
it's it can't not grow. Butyou know, when you start looking at
it, the structure and the systemis there, and now how you incorporate
that, and how you maneuver andmake it fine to be able to play
jet lag and all these different thingslike that. It becomes global and it

(01:02:45):
is a global sport. But whenyou start talking about a company, you
look at these big you know,you look at these big corporations right now,
and you look at how long majorityof these corporations last, and how
long they do let you know,thirty forty fifty years, sixty years before
they just kind of die out andsomething else takes over and do that.

(01:03:07):
You know, it's just endless rightnow with the NBA even with the NFL.
Right now, soccer is making ahuge straw here. It's starting to
become bigger and bigger. Here yougo overseas, you know, they're not
talking a lot about basketball. We'retalking about you know, football, we're
talking about rugby right now, they'retalking about cricket, you know, different
things. So it's how do youcater to certain demographics and how do you

(01:03:31):
cater to them. You know,you go over to England, they might
be interested. They're they're interested in, you know, cricket or another sports,
soccer, they're not interested in basketballright now. But it's starting to
grow, just like women's volleyball andwe go back to that, it's starting
to grow. Two huge professional leaguesthat are growing right now. Love is

(01:03:52):
about to start up right now,and you know it's just going to go
from there. So, you know, hundreds of thousands of volleyball players now
have something to look forward to andto play towards. Didn't they have it?
Was it? Which team? Wasit? Ninety three thousand, ninety
two, ninety three thousand fans thatI want to say that was at Nebraska

(01:04:15):
they played a volley game outside theirfootball arena and they did it. It's
growing, it's growing, it's growing. You know when you start looking at
that they broke the record for volleyballattendance. It's definitely growing right now.
I mean, you have over ahalf a million volleyball players in the country

(01:04:36):
right now at a young age,right now, and they want to know,
like, what's my end game?Do I have an opportunity to play
professional? Do I have an opportunityto be able to do that? I
remember my sister played volleyball where youcan only score on your service, and
now it's changed. So the gamehas evolved and it's gotten bigger, and
you have more clubs, you havemore organizations, you have more girls that

(01:04:59):
are serious about it, and youhave more schools that are starting to respect
the fact that you know, womencan definitely dominate in these type of sports,
and they're definitely doing it right now. I mean, I'm very surprised
even with the WNBA right now,and I get Kaitlin Clark and you have
Reese and you have all these girlsthat are coming in now. But you
can see it's starting to grow.It's taking some time. Finally, finally,

(01:05:21):
before you know, you're hemorrhaging tenmillion dollars plus. But now they're
starting to figure out how to standon their own feet and be able to
do that and promote their league.And that's the biggest thing. You know.
You pay more when you can promoteand you can earn more, you
know, is when you can getmore. And that's kind of how it
works. And you look at howthe NBA has done it right now.

(01:05:44):
People just need to continue to keepsupporting it. But it also gives the
younger population some type of goal setting. You know, everybody needs hope,
Somebody wants to have a goal setup. This is where I want to end
up as I don't want to justplay six years and know that I can't
go play anytime after that. NowI got to go get a real job
and pay taxes. You know,if I love doing something, let me
see a lot I can do it. I can't believe it's the first year

(01:06:08):
ever the w n b A nowhas chartered flights. They don't have to
sit and coach like that's crazy.Imagine if your whole career you were sitting,
you were sitting with the fans everywhereyou rode like it's a It's a
different world now for them it reallyis, and I'm looking I'm looking forward
to seeing how it grows. Rightnow, I don't have any basketball players

(01:06:30):
none, they're all volleyball. Idon't think the five year I don't think
the five year old knows it.But she's not going to escape from my
right. My wife plays and Michigan's. She's definitely not going to This is
this is my theory. This iswhy there's so many more of these kids
that are taking it up. It'sbecause you big ass athletes are making big
ass athletes right It's it's it's themeat and vegetables for being imported from god

(01:07:02):
knows where right now. It is. But everybody get bigger, you're getting
stronger, you're getting more massive.There's a girl right now, I won't
say the name, but we weretalking about her and she's on the Olympic
team and she is just massive.My wife's like, I didn't realize how
tall and massively just not that justmassive, strong muscle. And I'm just

(01:07:27):
like, you never had to goup against any of that when you played.
She's like, no, you canjust see it, you know.
You look at Dana Redkey right now, she's six eight, she's six eight.
You can't teach hide. No,no, you can't teach it's it's
skill. I can't teach six eight. You're seeing all these things now,
you're seeing ds is and even volleyball'schanging the rules. But you're seeing all

(01:07:49):
these ds is now that are sixtwo to sixty three. CE six two
sixty three. The centeract at utright now. You know she's six three,
she's six three. That's crazy.And they're just getting bigger and bigger
and bigger, and it's all ourfault. I'm sorry, you know,
before we wrap the uh sorry,before we wrap. The NBA Finals are

(01:08:13):
getting started tonight, So give usa quick prediction, Dallas or Boston.
You really want to know. I'llbe honest with you. I think Dallas
is going to take this. Ithink Dallas is going to take it.
It's just that it's just a differentdimension now each Now you got to understand,
you're looking at the two best teamson each conference right now that are

(01:08:35):
playing right now. I don't thinkDallas is the best team. I think
Dallas has gotten hot ever since thetrade deadline. There's a lot of teams,
let's be how, there's a lotof teams out there. There's a
lot of players out there that shouldbe in the NBA right now that aren't
for whatever reason, whether they don'thave a team concept or they can't follow
instructions to rules and they're just youknow, a loose cannon when it comes

(01:08:57):
to it. But I see Dallastaking this first game. You know,
me making a prediction right now.Don't take this to Vegas right now.
Don't call me and talking about Ilost you know, my house and I
mortgage this and my first born.Don't don't do that. I see Dallas
taking this one right now. Andyou start seeing how they're playing right now,
and their continuity right now, andeven their guard play right now.

(01:09:18):
They want to play it up.They can play up tempo or low tempo,
mid temple. I mean when youstart looking at like Holiday and you
start looking at Holford that's been therefor Horford, that's been there for god
knows how long. What is thisis what eighteenth year, nineteenth year,
When you start looking at that,they have the experience. They definitely have
the experience right now. But we'llsee if they can keep up with that

(01:09:41):
pace and they can shoot the ballat Bossy can shoot the ball it's consistently.
And I'll say, if Horford cankeep consistently shooting the ball the way
that he has right now in termsof stretching out that for right now and
the way that they're playing defense,it's going to be a tough game.
But we're still looking at consistency.These teams are going to start targeting your
weakest points right now. They're gonnacapitalize on every single time. We're not

(01:10:01):
gonna just run one or two setsand switch it up. We're gonna run
the same switch over and over againuntil you either figure it out, and
when you figure it out, we'regonna go an opposite way. And if
we score on it, we're gonnakeep running it until you stop it consistently.
But it's gonna be a definitely upand down game right now. I
just see I'm going to mass maybemaybe maybe because it's Texas. I got

(01:10:24):
to serve my Texas team right now. I I just got to do that.
I mean, fel Toronto. Ifyou say maverage with Toronto, what
would you do you think? Listen, I'm I'm a I'm a total loser
Raptor fan, and there's nothing Ican't even pretend not to be. But
you know what the thing is,I'm down with Dallas winning, mainly because
Boston fans are insufferable. If theywin, you'll never hear the end of

(01:10:45):
it. So I down with Dallaswinning it. If I'm Boston, though,
I'm gonna do exactly what you justhinted at. I'm gonna pick and
roll Kyrie to death. I'm gonnapick and roll Kyrie to BOST's been shooting
the ball well outside, they've beenshooting the shot. They've been hitting long
balls. They've been getting to therim. I mean, they've they've been
there. They're mid range, theyare threes, and finishing around the basket

(01:11:09):
has been phenomenal. Yea, whatthey've done right now, it's just if
Dallas can control the tempole. Theycan control the tempole. They're gonna have
a hard time trying to do that. But yeah, if they can put
them in picking rolls, they cando that. But you know, Lucas,
Lucas gonna he's gonna search those calls. We're talking about another European player.
He's gonna get those calls that hewants to get right now. That's

(01:11:30):
gonna be the thing. You've gotthat dynamic duo right now, and they
know their roles, they know theirresponsibilities, and they can both score the
ball anytime they want to at will. It's gonna come down to role players,
I think in terms of what theirrole players do right now. If
they get the rebounds they need toget, they get the defensive stops on

(01:11:50):
the mismatches, they shouldn't have aproblem. But it's gonna be a competitive
game. I mean, it's gonnacome down. I don't think it's going
to be a ninety to sixty game. It's going to come down to defensive
stops and turnovers. But who canhit the outside jump shots that that mid
range, the long distance range rightnow, those spot ups on drawing kicks
that they can hit those, somebody'sgoing to open it up. So well,

(01:12:14):
screw both of you, guys.I say it goes the distance,
and I say Boston wins. Here'sthe things, here's the things that I've
learned out of this conversation. Andthe first thing and foremost is is that
if you need somebody to never dropa name, Brian Skinner is the guy
told me a long time it's goodto be seen and not heard. That

(01:12:36):
is a true statement that more peopleneed to adhere to my friend. You
know what, here's the last commentI'm going to make on the finals.
Luka Doncic to me, is sofrustrating because he is He is the Cleveland
Browns, Jim Brown of the NBA. You know what he's gonna do every
single time, and you still can'tstop them. Jim Brown were sweep right,

(01:13:00):
you knew was coming. The defenseknew was coming. They couldn't stop
them. Luca right hand to thebasket, left hand pull up. We
know what's coming, and we stillcan't stop them. Well, there's always
there's always been guys like that though. Yeah, I mean Kareem Abdul Jabbar,
you knew as soon as he turnedthat skyhook was coming and there was
nothing you could do about it.Well, to think about Dallas, I

(01:13:23):
like, if they give the ball, they share the ball, They share
the ball, they share the ball. If they draw and kick, they're
hitting the open guy. Right now, it's going to come down to their
role players. And I'll say roleplayers that's outside of Kyrie and Luca.
Right now, they hit those shotsand they do their jobs. I mean,
they know exactly what they're supposed todo. But they share the ball,

(01:13:45):
you know, it's not that oneon one right now. They pick
opportunities and they certainly dissect the defensewith what the defense gives them. So
we're just gonna have to see rightnow, you said seven Boston game seven
Boston, I'm gonna say, it'sgoing to be sick. But you know,
you know, we'll follow up.We'll follow up on it. We'll
call you on it. Nice,love it. And you know what,

(01:14:08):
you're absolutely right about the role playersbecause before Dallas wenton got Gafford and Washington,
they were a sub five hundred team. They added a couple of role
playing bigs, and suddenly they tookoff to the moon. They had all
the skill you didn't have. Theguys doing the dirty work. They go
straight to the glass and they don'tneed to score twenty thirty points. They

(01:14:28):
go to the glass. They doall the dirty work, and they do
all the things that people don't expectthem to do. You never have to
call a play for them. Theydon't care. They're still gonna contribute.
You gotta love guys like that,and that's what you're looking for right now.
So it would be great, obviously, you know, You got a
lot of Kyrie haters out there,but he's doing something that a lot of
other players that they aren't there now. They're in Cargo, they're in Rio,

(01:14:56):
they're hanging out right now. Soit'd be good to definitely see him
be success with all the controversy he'shad in the last couple of years,
to see him prevail. But youknow, it's just it's deeper for him.
I think it's deeper for him.I don't he can score the ball
whenever he wants to, but he'sperfectly okay with distributing and getting other guys
opportunities to excel and see and that'sthat's what I'm looking for right now now.

(01:15:21):
Boston tons of great players, butwe can see if they can put
two and two together and see ifthey can make it happen. It's gonna
be excited regardless it's not Boston Ihate, it's their fans. Thank you
so much, Brian Skinner. Iappreciate you guys. Chris don I appreciate
you guys having me on the show. Definitely will follow up. I'll definitely

(01:15:43):
give you a call Chris and letyou know continue. I'll be mad enough
to go light on you after goodso good, I got you boom hey,
continued success with the coaching and goodluck to your daughter in France.
Will be watching, Yeah, I'llbe watching to I'll be there. You're

(01:16:06):
gonna get your ass on a plane. All right, Skinner, we'll talk
to you soon. All right?There he goes everybody that is NBA veteran,
tough guy. Brian Skinner played forlike half the league and just a
fun guy. Super intelligent guy asyou can tell, articulate and a guest

(01:16:26):
that I love having on this show. There you go. Yeah, there's
a lot of fun. He's gonnalose, though, you guys should have
made a wager. TID what youwant to plug listen? We all know
the usual stuff. You can alwayscheck it out over at the you know,
the tid talk channel. You canalso go to live audio wrestling on
YouTube. Lots of stuff going upthere. A brand new episode had great

(01:16:49):
conversation with the legendary moon Dog Mansonthat is up there right now. Always
new content going up almost on adaily basis. So go to the law
Dash Live audio wrestling over on YouTube. Make sure that you like and subscribe.
I've got a bunch of new ideasand some new stuff coming out.
It's gonna be fantastic always. Youcan hear it as well in the podcast

(01:17:11):
form over on snmy radio and allof your other podcast providers. So outside
of that, I'm also going tobe checking out some Neo Pro wrestling this
weekend. Nice so you can gogo Neo Pro, which is always going
to be fun, and they've gota fantastic card coming up. So and

(01:17:31):
also coming up with them as well, the Jesse Scott Invitational is going to
be happening later on this year,so we'll keep everybody informed on that one
as we go forward. Outside ofthat, no, that's it, that's
all. That's all. This Sundayon Sunday Nights Made event on Sunday nightsmaanevent

(01:17:53):
dot Com and ts and Radio,I will be doing a one on one
interview with Brian Clark, formerly knownas Adam Baum in the WWE and known
as Wrath in w c W.I'm very much looking forward to catching up
with him for the first time inmany, many many years, so that
should be a lot of fun.Make sure you check that out. There's

(01:18:15):
there's a guy tid in the inthe history of wrestling. He's one of
those guys that makes you scratch yourhead and go he should have been more,
He should have been more. There'sa few of them. Yeah,
he's on that list, you knowwhat I mean. There's a guy.
There's a guy with the name Morgan. Yeah. Yeah, well, you
know what I mean. Listen,I got a question for you. Yeah.

(01:18:38):
Yeah, we can get one ofthese, one of these blackbork hats.
Yeah, with an old throwback patchfrom the O Show. Remember those
shirts, the keep Calm and fohat. Oh, we get them to

(01:19:00):
do it. Keep Calm and fyour hat. That is a throwback,
that is for sure. Those keepCalm memes just went out like fourteen years
ago. Dude, what are youbringing? Bringing all back exactly? His
name is Notorious Tid Christen Well.I am Donnie DeSilva. Thank you so

(01:19:24):
much for hanging out with us forthis extended version of the Godfathers of Podcasting.
We'll see you next time. Peace,